This first of the biennial meetings of the WTO is vitally important for us all. It is important
that it is a success.

In preparing for this meeting Director-General Ruggiero has done great service in keeping
our delegations focused on the fundamental importance of the WTO to the multilateral trading system
as a whole, and on the importance of looking ahead as well as back.

Fundamental to looking ahead in any organization is the need to ensure its objectives are
articulated clearly. We in the WTO need a clear goal. We must commit ourselves to achieving a world
where trade flows freely: to the progressive liberalization and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers,
to the rejection of all forms of protectionism, and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in
international trade relations.

In such a world the open non-discriminatory provisions of the multilateral trading system will
apply in full measure to the products and services of all members of the global economy: a world
of free and open trade at the multilateral level.

So the ground has been prepared. Success now depends on us. For our part, New Zealand
is clear on what we have to do.

We have to bed down and lock in those commitments we agreed to during the Uruguay Round.
Their effective implementation is essential to the process we are engaged in. New Zealand has fulfilled
its commitments and we look to all our trading partners to fulfil theirs too.

We must look forward as well. That is why New Zealand has placed so much emphasis on
the built-in agenda. The various agreements concluded during the Uruguay Round tell us when the
next negotiations or reviews are scheduled to begin. Most are not due until the turn of the century.
We respect those agreements fully, and do not propose any negotiations be brought forward.

But to ensure that the WTO's negotiating process is more efficient than the GATT's, and to
show that we have learnt from the past, the analysis and information exchange that precedes any
negotiation cannot be left until the year 2000. It must be got under way next year. That is what we
Ministers here in Singapore must mandate.

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We also have some unfinished business from the Uruguay Round that we must conclude; the
sectoral negotiations in services, in particular basic telecommunications, financial services, and maritime
services. New Zealand has put forward full and comprehensive MFN-based offers in all three areas
but has been frustrated that negotiations have either been deferred or are incomplete. Let's resolve
to finish them off.

And while we are about it, let's resolve to make some real progress on the issue of trade and
environment too. We believe that trade rules and protection of the environment should not be in conflict
with each other, that they should be mutually supportive. In 1997 we need to be able to convince the
people of the world that this issue is still being dealt with seriously.

Some issues that we are discussing this week - like investment and competition policy - are
referred to occasionally as "new". But they are not new. Both are encompassed in existing WTO
agreements and are therefore part of the built-in agenda already. No one is suggesting negotiating
disciplines at this stage. But open educative discussion would, we think, be of benefit to prepare
ourselves for the negotiations and reviews to which we are all already committed. Let's make further
progress here.

Finally, for New Zealand, as a country with global trading interests, the primacy of the
multilateral trading system is fundamental. Open regionalism should inspire us to ensure that the
dynamism of the WTO is maintained.

But it is important that regional trade arrangements be complementary to and consistent with
the multilateral trading system. For our part, we in the WTO should seek to broaden and globalize
the benefits of regional arrangements through further liberalization at the multilateral level.

For us in the Asia/Pacific region it is symbolic that we are meeting here in Singapore - symbolic
of this region's commitment to the multilateral trading system.

Mr. Chairman, through you my thanks to the Government of Singapore for hosting this important
meeting; and my thanks for the commitment you have made to making it a success.

You may have noticed that I have not used the word "agriculture" once. It has not been easy
as I am a Minister of Agriculture. But I have not needed to: we have started to bring agriculture
fully into the multilateral trading system. It is promoting the further development of that system that
has brought all of us to Singapore. We have made a good start. Now let's get on with it.